Until the mid-17th century, there was no word for consciousness

It’s hard to wrap your head around, but the concept of “consciousness” first appeared in René Descartes’ “Meditations on First Philosophy,” published in 1641. There, Descartes used the Latin word conscius once, in passing, and never returned to it.

On the other hand, in the East, practically from the very birth of philosophy, there existed an extensive web of concepts describing all aspects of the mind and an elaborate system of methods for training it.”